How will our judges select the three contestants to move on to our final Round Five challenge in the Super Online Sewing Match? Just look at the talent and skill so evident in these Negroni shirts. The Negroni Shirt from Sarai Mitnick at Colette Patterns is a great chance to show off buttonholes, a collar, cuffs and plackets. This “menswear challenge” didn’t throw our sewists off their game at all, of course. Kelli, Charise, Sue and Melissa have outdone themselves. We also want to thank the supportive and stylin’ significant others who modeled in this round; don’t they look great in their new shirts?!

We’ll announce our final three contestants and the last challenge on Wednesday. (By process of elimination you know our final challenge will be a Sewaholic pattern… Woo hoo!) Who will continue to compete for the Grand Prize, a Janome Horizon MC8900?!

Click on each contestant’s blog link below for more info and photos. There are tons of great tips and resources in each of the contestants’ posts for making tailored shirts. Don’t forget: You can join the Community Match (for a chance to win some amazing prizes) through September 10th!

“My inspiration was my husband. Glen wears two kinds of shirts… Hawaiian inspired shirts in crazy, fun prints in summer, and stand up collared shirts the rest of the year. So what do I sew? Version two of the Negroni is a sure thing for a casual Hawaiian style shirt. It has the short sleeves, the camp style collar and an easy relaxed vibe. Version one, with long sleeves, has more of the challenges I want to sew; specifically the cuffs and the sleeve plackets. I decide to sew version one and alter it by adding a stand up collar and front placket. I fret that I have strayed too far from the original pattern, but I know that this style of shirt will not be a miss with the mister. I made the pattern adjustments with the help of my trusty Vogue Sewing book, copyright 1975.”

“I wanted to make it a little more interesting while also being something that Phillip would actually wear (read: nothing too crazy or girly-looking). He really likes western shirts so I decided to go that route. I looked at a bunch of vintage western shirt patterns on Pinterest and decided I would change the yoke in the back to be more decorative and add matching ones to the front. I also changed the shape of the pocket flaps to mirror the shape of the yoke and I added piping to the edges of both to make them stand out a little more. As you can see, I cut the yoke, pocket and button placket on the bias.”

“I have made a few simple shirts for my boys in the past few years but haven’t made a tailored men’s shirt since I was in design school over 20 years ago! It was a challenging project but the pattern really has wonderful instructions and I would recommend it to anyone who is new at making a tailored shirt. I especially love the packaging. The instructions are in booklet form with a spot in the back for the pattern. Very nicely designed!…

All in all I’m really happy with the shirt; the best part of making this shirt was during the ‘photo shoot.’ My hubs was looking at the cuff and said, ‘Wow babe, this shirt is really well made!’…”

“With this challenge came a new dilema – consulting and agreeing with my husband’s tastes along with my own. What was supposed to be a quick stop at the fabric store soon became a long, drawn out excursion with each of us holding multiple bolts of fabric and trying to convince the other one the choose one of our picks. In the end we agreed on this warm, plaid flannel. I love the bold colors and modern squares which allowed me plenty of opportunity to play with the angles…

One of the things that I loved about sewing up the Negroni is that it is a more casual take on a collared shirt so there was a lot of room for individual details. I played a lot with the bias of the fabric to add interest. I did this on both the back yoke and also by adding front yokes to both of the shoulders.”

Wow. Wow. I love all of these! I especially love the stand-up collars, I *love* how crisp the green checked shirt is, I love the piping on the western one, the cuff with the floral facing is amazing and the bias plaid pocket is awesome 🙂 I don’t envy the judges the task of choosing just one!

These ladies are so incredibly talented, the judges are going to have a hard time choosing the three finalists! All of the men look very handsome in their Negroni shirts, I’m truly inspired to give men’s wear a try now.

I am super impressed! To me, this kind of project is completely overwhelming, but every one of these shirts looks incredibly made. I like how each contestant stayed true to what their man would wear, but added nice extra details. Great week!

Oh! This challenge is so inspiring. My husband has been hounding me to sew for him, and I keep putting it off. This is totally motivating me, seeing how awesome these all turned out and all the cool design changes. Love it!

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Meet Kristin + Beth

We always travel with handmade bags. We have vintage embroidery framed on our walls, piles of fabric next to the sewing machine and more WIPs than we'll ever finish. We love the history, craft and artistry of sewing. Read More

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